JFK Airtrain: Good News, Bad News, Good News and Bad News

"Jishnu Mukerji" wrote in message
...
Steve Lackey wrote:

LAX overcrowding has lead to the John Wayne airport in Orange County,
EWR is the overflow from JFK/EWR,

.....but historically EWR was there much before JFK, and EWR is much
more capacity constrained than JFK both in terms of runways and
gates/slots; so wouldn't it be the case that JFK is the overflow
from EWR?;-)

Jishnu.

You're right, EWR is older than I suggested. I think Teterboro was intended
to be overflow from EWR, but local opposition and sufficient room for
expansion prevented this from happening...

Cyrus Afzali wrote:
On Tue, 24 Feb 2004 13:07:31 -0500, Jishnu Mukerji
wrote:


Steve Lackey wrote:


LAX overcrowding has lead to the John Wayne airport in Orange County,
EWR is the overflow from JFK/EWR,

.....but historically EWR was there much before JFK, and EWR is much
more capacity constrained than JFK both in terms of runways and
gates/slots; so wouldn't it be the case that JFK is the overflow

from EWR?;-)

Jishnu.


Uhhhh, wrong. Idlewild, which was the airport's first name, was
constructed in 1948, with just one terminal on 1,000 acres of land.
Today, it has nine and covers 5,000 acres.

Likewise, Newark Intl. was also constructed in 1948.

Actually Port Authority took over the operation of EWR under a lease from the
City of Newark on March 22, 1948. That is where that 1948 date came from. It was
originally opened on October 1, 1928.

Jishnu.

Read your post on AirTrain with interest tonight, after a long
day going on a job interview at JFK Airport at Federal Circle,
which had me there from 10am through almost 2pm. I live
very close to Jamaica LIRR and the AirTrain station there,
in Kew Gardens, one J train stop away, and still on my first
journey on the AirTrain, which in itself was very clean, fun,
fast, and the customer service level was high with on-platform
attendants and reps., I found some things irritating: I'm only
going one subway stop to Jamaica, a fast ride, but then have
to walk upstairs and way around the corner to access the
AirTrain station building, not really that big a deal, but a lot
of walking and if lugging stuff, it's even more irritating, I'm sure.
Nobody in the subway token booths (which mind you, may soon
be gone!) knew if the regular metrocards would work at the
AirTrain terminal, I found out regular ones do, special ones don't,
and coming back my metrocard ran out, so I was forced to shell
out for a mere $5 coming BACK from Federal Circle to let the
gate machine let me through! I would rather have done this
transaction waiting at JFK, which lets you board without gating
at Federal Circle (or terminals), but then you have to pay up
on your return to Jamaica, or Howard Beach, any station OUTSIDE
the terminal loop. I also found the AirTrain metrocard machines
a bit confusing, I had no idea what the hell SmartLink was either:
I would have investigated this by touching the box on screen,
but had no time to do so! This is a bit silly, they should have
visual tags onscreen to tell you at a glance what this is, like
"SmartLink (LIRR to Newark Airport link) or whatever. This can
easily be done. Also, are you buying an AirTrain ONLY metrocard,
or a regular subway metrocard? This wasn't totally clear, although
the machines at the AirTrain terminal do say AirTrain metrocard
on the startup screen, so that should explain things, but somehow,
it doesn't as clearly as it should! I figured it all out, but I'm a native
NY'er and frequent subway and bus customer, or else I might've
had some real trouble and would have to have called over one
of these station agents, who were actually very helpful and
courteous on my trip today. I wish though I could've resolved
my Metrocard issues BEFORE boarding AirTrain and making sure
I had my return trip figured in as well, I thought I had done so,
but the exit machine at Jamaica would not accept the regular
metrocard...I had to go back to the machines and get a new
card to let me exit the station, which was quite irritating, since
I had the required fare on my OTHER subway metrocard, it just
didn't seem to want to accept it.
I really get annoyed though when I get to Federal Circle
in record time on AirTrain, get off, downstairs, and then I find I
am not near the building I need to get to for my interview,
but rather have to take a rather long shuttle bus ride (ok, it's free)
to the building in question. JFK's a huge space, and the buses
are free, ok, (thank God!) but the trip later today BACK to the
AirTrain link alone took almost 35 minutes, the bus took ages to
show up for some reason. then the wait for a Jamaica AirTrain
back home was a bit longer than I expected, but not terrible,
maybe 15 minutes total of a wait. You should've had lunch,
as I did today, at the Building 16 restaurant/cafeteria for staff
and visitors, boy is that the "old" JFK in full swing, a real old-fashioned
cafeteria reminsicent of a college one, but arguably a lot better food!
The lighting was inexplicably dimmed and they had too many annoying
loud TVs blaring, but otherwise that experience was pretty funny
and amusing, the food wasn't bad. Somehow though, I think working
at JFK without wheels is a bit of daunting prospect, even with
the speed of the AirTrain link to it--if you work directly at a terminal,
it's fine, if you work at a more remote location at JFK, or have to visit
one, (cargo, Federal Circle, etc. the foreign currency Citibank office)
you are in for a LONGGG ride and several changes of vehicle, which
can be very maddening.
Overall, I would rate the actual AirTrain experience itself very
highly, as long as they get the Metrocard and transport hub links
worked out better, better communication on the ticket machines of
what different options are at a glance, and definitely better maps
and signs at the stations, especially for foreign visitors. I tried
a payphone at the Fed. Circle station and it worked very well indeed,
and didn't even bust my chops for an extra quarter or two!
This is very rare for NYC, I can tell you.

Scott,
nyc
(a newbie on the board)






[quote=Arnold Reinhold]While attending the Linux World trade show in Manhattan, I decided to
check out the new, long-awaited Airtrain at John F. Kennedy
International Airport in Queens. There is good news, bad news, more
good news and more bad news about this project.

The good news is that the JFK AirTrain is a massive, efficient,
attractive system that fills a major hole in the New York City
transportation grid. The bad new is that it is far more difficult to
use the JFK Airtrain than it should be. The good news is that simple,
inexpensive steps could remedy many of the usability issues. The bad
new is that responsibility is so fragmented that nothing may be done.

(from your earlier post about AirTrain to/from JFK)

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 22:59:12 -0500, 127.0.0.1 wrote:

On Sun, 15 Feb 2004 18:21:29 -0400, "Clark F. Morris, Jr."
wrote:

n
Station, I doubt Newark is getting much if anything in the way of taxes
or in lieu payments.

the city of newark was recently given 200 million dollars for lease
payments

For the Airport and the Port Newark facilities? I was referring to
taxes on Penn Station and other commuter/long distance passenger rail
related property which I believe are now tax exempt in New Jersey.
This is a drastic change from the 1950's when the railroads were
considered a cash cow to be aggressively milked. I am not certain
about freight rail property.



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